Former Connecticut U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman — also a former Democratic vice presidential candidate and currently chairman of the advocacy group, United Against Nuclear Iran — says he hopes President Donald Trump decides to withdrawn from the Iranian nuclear deal next week.
Lieberman told Fox News Futures host Marie Bartiromo in an interview on Sunday (May 6), “I give you the perspective of somebody who was in the Senate for 24 years, worked with people in both parties to put sanctions, economic pressure on Iran with a singular goal which was to denuclearize Iran to stop their nuclear weapons development program.
“What the Obama administration and our allies in Europe did was not that. It basically gave away all our leverage against them in return for a pause in their nuclear program – if they’re keeping their word, which they don’t have a good reputation for doing – and it gave them $100 billion which they’ve used to support terrorists and to spread their rule throughout the Middle East.
“So it was a bad deal, a mistake for us. I think the president really has the power to correct that mistake and I hope he does.”
The worst part of the nuclear deal, says Lieberman, is that it “didn’t really end Iran’s nuclear program. It’s clear they’ve got tremendous capacity.”
Lieberman says that Iran signed the JCPOA in 2015 in order to “get the economic pressure off of them to get the $100 billion. They can go back and have a legitimate nuclear weapons development program in about ten years — and that’s not the security that the world needs.”
The second point, he says, is that although the agreement gave United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors the right to inspect facilities “all over Iran,” the Tehran government has not allowed those inspectors to enter any military site, which is “where they would be cheating, if they’re cheating,” says Lieberman, adding, “and I worry that they are.”
Regarding whether or not Europe will ultimately go along with Washington if the president decides to withdraw from the deal — Lieberman says despite the vocal protests to the contrary, he is convinced they will, for the simple reason that the United States has a bigger economy than that of Iran. Money talks.
“The Iranian economy is four or five hundred billion dollars. Ours is like $44 trillion,” Lieberman emphasized, “so you give the European banking and business community a choice of what to do if we pull out, and slap the sanctions back on Iran.
“It’s no choice: They’re going to continue to do business with us and they’re going to turn their backs on the Iranians, and most of the rest of the world will do the same,” he said.
“Then, hopefully the Iranians will come back to the table and negotiate a total denuclearization of their country and then we can welcome them into the world community.”